Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Thing 13-Presentations

Love 'em or hate 'em, presentations of varying degrees of formality are pretty commonplace in librarianship.  This Thing looks at some apps that can be used to help create presentations.  I scoped out two apps-Haiku Deck (Apple only) and Deck Slideshow Presentations (Apple and Android) for this thing. 

Haiku Deck-Right after opening the app for the first time, there is a brief presentation about Haiku Deck (promotional more than informational).  Then, as with anything else these days, you have to create an account to get started.  Once you've done that, you'll see your "decks" (presentations).  At this point, there is just one-"Meet Haiku Deck for iPhone."  That is when I realized that Haiku Deck currently has limited functionality for iPhones.  You can view decks but you cannot create or edit them on iPhones.  Supposedly this ability is coming soon, but in the mean time if you try to click on the "+" to create a new deck, you are offered email links for the web version of Haiku Deck or a link to the iPad version of the app.  I don't have an iPad, so I had to check it out online.  For anyone familiar with Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezi, or any other slide-based presentation application its easy enough to use, even without a demo or tutorial.  One really slick feature is the image search box.  Pop in a search term, "beach" for example, and up pop a bunch of beach photos you can use in your presentation (of course you can also upload your own photos).  Supposedly (hopefully) the images are all free, Creative Commons licensed images (more info here: https://haikudeck.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/202231193-Free-Images-Licensing-and-Commercial-Use), which is a GREAT feature.  And, if you've typed some text onto a slide it might automatically find relevant images for you.  For example, I created a slide that had the text "What about libraries?" on it, then clicked on the images button and it automatically searched for 'libraries' images for me!  Neat!  In my honest opinion (and in my limited user experience since I cannot use my phone to edit/create decks), that is the app's coolest feature.  Overall, it was very easy to use and a fun alternative to the more commonplace PPT or Prezi.  I will definitely keep this in mind next time I have a presentation, and hope for continued updates that bring more functionality to the iPhone app. 

Deck Slideshow Presentations-This app does actually allow users to create and edit slideshows on their iPhones.  It is simpler, doesn't require an account, and has no tutorial or anything upon start up.  Its focus is on 'Twitter-like brevity" (from the Sample Deck that comes pre-loaded on the app)-it actually limits the number of characters each part of a presentation can have.  This is great-many people put WAY too much text on their slides, then simply read the text...BORING.  This app might help eliminate that problem.  The app itself has a selection of  'professionally designed' themes-you choose the one you want, punch in your text and data, and you're good to go!  Some (like Paper Planes) are fun, but could get old fast (imagine orange and grey paper planes unfolding and refolding, and flying across the screen to reveal your text...cool right?  Only for so long, and only ONCE.  Show the same group of people that same theme again and it loses its cool factor-in my opinion!).  Anyway, most the themes are pretty nice and creating a deck is pretty simple-there is a very clean, easy to follow layout in the creation phase.  There is also an option to create and input your own charts and graphs-Probably not ideal if you have a lot of data, but easy enough to use.  Overall, this is a great app!  Easy to use, really fast, and worth a download if you're looking for something fresh (note-you will have an ad message at the end of your presentations-"Effortlessly create unique presentations with Deck at deck.com" or something along those lines). 

I haven't had to do a presentation that required a slideshow or anything of that nature for at least a year (when I finished grad school), but believe it or not-with these apps I'm sort of excited for the next opportunity to come up!  Cheers!

Thing 12-Books, Books and MORE BOOKS!

Whew-its been a while but I'm back!  Feeling refreshed after a long weekend and ready to finally type up my next blog post  :)  This time we tackle the arguable "meat and potatoes" of librarianship-books!

When I got my first iPhone about five years ago one of the first apps I downloaded was Free Books (available for Apple and Android).  However, I didn't use it much.  It provides access to thousands of eBooks, mainly public domain titles, but I quickly found that I just don't like reading eBooks on my iPhone screen-its just too little!  So, after a few attempts, I eventually just deleted the app.  In the future, if I get an iPad, I would almost certainly download it again, as it was an easy to use app and who doesn't love free books!

On a related note, for this Thing I also downloaded Audiobooks (Apple and Android).  Audiobooks is pretty much the audio version of Free Books-Thousands of (mostly) public domain books in audio version!  The app itself is great-books are listed by title, author, genre, popularity, even narrator (which I really like-I'm kind of picky about my narrators and when I find a good narrator I want to listen to everything they've done!  This saves me a lot of steps of looking them up online, finding the titles they've recorded, then searching through the app for those titles).  The app remembers where you are in a book and automatically resumes when you close and re-open the app.  The main downfall is that (at least for the free version) you cannot download audiobooks-you can only stream them!  This stinks for a few reasons.  I have about a 30 mile commute to work-PERFECT for audiobooks, but not if I've got to stream them (I have very little data on my phone plan, since I typically have wifi access, and those overages are STEEP!).  So unless I'm at home, its not very practical.  Also, even if I am at home,  I get nervous.  I was out doing yard work and listening to some Dickens and kept checking my phone to make sure I was still in wifi range!  But, I'll definitely keep the app as it did seem to have (based on the handful of titles I tried) good quality recordings, and sometimes I just feel like being read to rather than reading! 

I'm not sure I'd really recommend either of these apps to patrons, due to their limitations.  (Also, I still get a lot of patrons that don't have at home wireless internet, so streaming is more or less out).  I suppose if they were tech savvy and particularly interested in something other than our own eBook/eAudiobook collections, I might mention these apps.  I would certainly promote our collections before promoting either of the apps I used here, but they might be a good second option for someone looking for more. 

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Thing 11-Library & Reference

This Thing mainly covers library mobile apps!  I work for Anoka County Libraries and it is also my home library system, so I downloaded the ACL app for this Thing.  Curiously, I didn't have the app before (if, for example, I needed to renew something I would use the link in the reminder email and it would open my account in my internet browser on my phone. I guess I didn't realize there was an app, or feel a great need to look for one).  I did check out the reviews before downloading, and the main complaint I saw was that although it was a great app it was too slow.  Always good to keep an eye out on what the users think of our products...

Upon downloading I did a few different things-placed some holds, looked things up in the catalog, some of the more common things patrons might use the app for.  Interestingly, I was unable to renew materials using the app.  I tried several titles that all were eligible for renewal and yet none would renew.  We have had prior sporadic reports of the renewal feature not working on the app; I guess I caught it at a bad time!  This does highlight a major problem with the app though-there was no error message to indicate my items DID NOT renew, I had to re-examine my account to determine they had not renewed on my own.  Some patrons may not take this step and simply assume their items were renewed-this could of course lead to confusion, late fees, and upset patrons.  Hopefully a permanent solution (or at least an error message of sorts!) can be found/created.

Anyway, back to the good!  The ISBN lookup feature is really slick.  It allows you to scan the barcode of a book and will then search the catalog automatically for that title!  Handy for when you see a book of interest but wouldn't want to purchase the title yourself- just scan and request (provided ACL has a copy in its holdings-it doesn't let you request ILL using the scan feature).  I also really like the Library Locator feature.  It pulls data from your phone's GPS to determine how far you are from each of the ACL branches  and can generate driving directions via Google Maps.  Great feature, and it could very likely come in handy when patrons travel to and from branches to pick up materials (some prefer to pick them up themselves rather than have them delivered for various reasons). 

I will agree with the reviewers about the app's speed.  It is slow moving between screens and a speed boost could greatly improve the app's overall usability and the user experience with the app.  Overall, though, it is a good app and easy enough to navigate.  I would definitely recommended it to our patrons!
 
I also work at a small private academic library.  As of yet, there is no app for the library.  We do, however, (much like ELM, the Electronic Library for Minnesota) have a responsive webpage that automatically re-sizes itself to fit to whatever screen size you are using.  Granted, that is pretty much the standard with web design these days, but its better than nothing at all! 

Next time, we move onto what some would consider the meat and potatoes of libraries-Books, Books, and MORE BOOKS!  Stay tuned :)